Thursday, October 11, 2018

THE GOVERNMENT’S PLAN TO IMPRISON “PROMISCUOUS WOMEN”

The New York Review of Books just published
a review, by Heather Ann Thompson, The
Trials of Nina McCall, by Scott Wasserman Stern; about a young Michigan
girl institutionalized and brutalized on the charge of possibly having contracted a venereal disease.

Politicians,
with the support of religious leaders, have always been inclined to impose
themselves in the sex life of citizens – mainly women.The Comstock Law of the 1870’s outlawed the
circulation of information and use of contraceptives, including condoms, in an
effort to discourage sex outside of marriage.

At the turn
of the century, before the advent of antibiotics, syphilis and gonorrhea were
at epidemic levels.During the First
World War what was known as sexually transmitted infections (STI) became a
military concern.Soldiers on leave
before deploying to the battlefront were being infected resulting in over
10,000 being discharged from the war effort.

In 1910 a
compilation of laws known as The American
Plan was instituted.What was
originally meant to combat prostitution around military bases quickly spun out
to a nationwide purge.The federal
government divided the nation into ten sections and supervisors and field
representatives were sent out to investigate prostitution and female
promiscuity.This movement was
championed by churches and well-to-do women who were concerned about their
husband’s sexuality.

Many of
these field representatives (often women) and the doctors designated to the
program were zealots.Should they
decide a woman was likely to have an STI they had the authority to detain her,
subject her to a medical examination and quarantine her indefinitely; forcing her,
against her will, to painful and dangerous medical treatment involving regular
injections of mercury.

These women
were deemed a menace to society and the ‘detention hospitals’ where they were
held in captivity were cruel and inhumane prisons.Women who resisted treatment were often physically
tortured, including an early form or waterboarding

The American Plan was abused by doctors, field reps
and local law enforcement.Young
women could be detained for simply being at a dance unescorted, or being in the
company of a group of men.The doctor
could declare a woman likely to contract STI in the future and place her into
the program.

Of course,
woman of wealth or position were not in danger – if they contracted a sexual
disease they could be treated by their private physician and the condition
appropriately covered up. This was a program
aimed at poor women and disproportionately women of color.

The American
Plan is still alive today and was recently resurrected as the justification for
enforced quarantine of a medical woman returning from treating Ebola victims in
Africa.

I do not
understand why men who love sex have vilified women’s sexuality, beginning with
Eve.

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